Tao was a scam invented by Hallmark to sell greeting cards, that’s what I say. Like Easter.
And Dan~, you’re right. Satisfaction is what you get when you’ve progressed all the way to your destination. Without a destination, there’s no way to measure progress.
If you aren’t satisfied, what makes you so sure that you are actually progressing?
Uccisore, at the same time, I think fundamentalists do miss alot, being content with where they are. There’s alot to be said for moderation. IE> Enjoying the journey, and then enjoying the destination.
For your food example, it’d be like catching a King Cod, gutting it and then deciding to throw it back, because you develop a sudden aversion to eating fish.
The fundamentalist is happy eating Top Ramen* everyday for their spiritual diet, and the new agist (eastern if you will) isn’t happy with anything on their plate. Then they’ll get a traditional noodle** plate and call it unacceptable, because it is traditional.
*A bland boring food, that leaves alot to be desired. Religion in it’s own ways is alot like this. Many people are fine with Top Ramen. I need more. It doesn’t satiate all of my spiritual desires.
**At the same time, I recognize the importance of tradition, and understand WHY it is tradition. It’s foolish to turn our nose up to something, just because it’s old
Like so much, I suppose, it comes down to aims. If our goal is just to be happy with our spiritual beliefs, I suppose the fundamentalist has an advantage over us. We can only criticize them if we take a position that there is some Truth, some stronger position, that they are refusing to look for. But then, if there is such a thing, it is our destination- and just as we need to be able to travel to get to it, we need to be able to know it when we see it.
Tough position!
MB,
Hey! No need to talk nasty! 
therein lies the rub.
If we are comfortable with our position/location/belief, then we have no need to search/travel. If we have no need to travel/search, we’ll never learn anything new. If we never learn anything new, we’ll never become uncomfortable with what we know, or where we are.
The only way to start a journey of any kind, even if you plan on enjoying that journey is to reject the status quo. Is that a bad thing to even partially reject it though?
Adam and Eve rejected immortality for mortality.
Moses rejected slavery for freedom.
Jesus rejected the pharisees and death for inclusive love and eternal life.
in order to accept something new, rejection of something old is necessary.
But, how can we know that we won’t miss that which we reject? The key lies in not burning your bridges. Just because you reject something, doesn’t mean you can’t re-visit once in awhile.
Ucc,
Not to harp on that old, tired subject that I do, but I’d recommend you check out the Eastern Religion and Ecology series by Harvard Press. I’m partial to the first one (Confucianism and Ecology, The interrelations of Heaven, Earth, and Humans editied by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Berthrong. Who knew I’d like it? A fair amount of Van Norden and Weiming. Good stuff.).
I think you’d like Confucianism (The Jesuits and other Jesus-loving folk tend to) because the messages are fairly similar. The issue of Harmony, however, is somewhat more stressed. Rather than being custodians of the Earth, we exist in harmony with Heaven and Earth (as opposed to the Daoist idea of Heaven and Earth existing in harmony with each other and humans are trying to crash the party like a bunch of drunken, noisy idiots). It’s about limiting our wants so that they match what the tri-part harmony can provide.
There is a richness to Eastern Philosophy, particularly in the moral department, that is absolutely not present in Western Philosophy. It’s sushi to boiled cod, if you will.
As for syth’s major premise, finding joy in the company of others, well, that’s most certainly the basis for my philosophy. It plays an important role in classical Confucianism as well. Though, I do think it’s worth mentioning that the neo-Confucians did take something worthwhile from the Daoists/Buddhists: the joy in being by one’s self.
As ragingly obvious as it sounds, a balance needs to be struck between the two. Most people don’t care about immortality, they are just striving to satisfy one, or both, of those drives. Sometimes attempted immortality is the means, but it is rarely an end.
Hey, it’s Xunxian!
Its about time you came up for air…
I am not drunken, noisy only on occasion, and the jury is still out on the idiot part - unless you ask my wife.
Taoism may not be quite the way you have characterized it in that man is seen as an integral part of of a processual universe. It is only when man abstracts himself away from process do we find drunken, noisy idiots.
Scyth,
This need to search, is what I find disturbing. Not searching isn’t a taking of the position of comfort, nor is not searching mean we learn nothing new. Not searching means stop looking past what you are experiencing right now. If you fail to learn from your immediate experience, you are asleep or unconscious.
One does not have to reject the staus quo, one only need to understand it and make changes to increase the efficacy of what is involved. It isn’t about comfort or not learning.
Yeah, not to beat that horse, but my point in coming onto this thread wasn’t really to be recruited into Rastafarianism or whatever you were talking about, Xunzian. Maybe another time- I’m not as adverse to all that as I present myself to be. As long as we’re making reccomendations, though, have you ever given the Baptists a shot? I could recommend some reading…PM in the works.
For now, I’m really just interested in this notion of life as some endless, depressing struggle where we can’t really achieve anything- especially as it applies to knowledge. Oh, and I do have something to add on that note, before I forget.
Scythekain
The flip side of that is that if we are afraid of coming to conclusions, and remain 'open-minded' perpetually, then we'll never know if we've come across anything better, and we'll actually be more likely to reject it if we do.
The only way to break that cycle is with some sort of objectivity breaking in from the outside- what I mean is, the truth needs to be special enough that we can on one hand tell when we aren't there yet, but see it for what it is when we get there. Are humans even capable of that?
Well, you know what they say about positions, and the evidence they require for support. I would say that rejecting the status quo requires the same amount of sound reason and good evidence as adopting it- it is not inherently superior.
Also, I think there's a tendency in what you wrote to look at the world sociologically, and to apply those trends to themselves. I could say "The world will never find the Truth about spiritual matters, and will debate these things in a state of confusion for all time." That much is true- new people are born, wise people die, the same old questions need to be answered again and again, and different bodies of thought will always persist across the population. But just because The World operates that way, does not mean that[i] I[/i] have to. Individuals come to conclusions all the time- individuals are capable of being decisive about matters even when All Men cannot be, and an individual can be satisfied.
Actually you are closer to being correct than you are facetiously positing.
Embracing the void, is the entirety of what of “Eastern happy-crappy” is mostly about, at the esoteric levels of pervading experience.
The “happy-crappy” visualisation comes from not understanding how the poetry is intended to lead the mind towards understanding.
Nice to see the Xunzian return. Welcome back brother.
Hey, that’s enlightened, drunken, noisy idiots. Get your inflammatory commentary straight before you go spouting off at the keyboard!!!
Yeah!!!
Damn it!!!
Okay, I’m done now.
scythe, no offense, but some of “us” have as the very last desire, to be “in the company of others”, as it is clear that “others” are nothing but a colossal dissapointment and an irritation.
Singurality of entity is greatly preferable.
Progress has to do with development/learning/increase.
Satisfaction has to do with being happy about the way things already are.
“Spiritual progress” has to do with development of things that are “spiritual”.
[edit]
I’d like to add, that our “spiritual side” is the energy part of our material bodies.
Hey good to be back. Lab’s been a bitch lately. That, and hard drive troubles at home.
Oh, and as for my description of humanity, Mastriani, I’m shocked at your correction . . . I was paraphrasing you, after all 
.
That’s highly subjective don’t you think? and how does that complete your missing half? If you develop for purely selfish reasons, have you made yourself more “whole”?
Perhaps… perhaps satisfaction is knowing when you’ve done something well, and knowing when to stop beating dead horses.
okay, and what is “spiritual”? To me, nature is my temple. Waterfalls my pulpit. To me the road is my church. The accelerator my sacrament.
The food I eat is the energy part of my body.
you are dissapointed due to selfishness, and lacking the ability to strive for balance and compromise.
you don’t know how to be satisfied with others, perhaps because you don’t know how to be satisfied with yourself.
this is precisely the problem I see.
you are in a state of not knowing.
It is about comfort, if you fail to find comfort, (see my shoe analogy in your thread) you will never stop seeking. If you can’t get past something that makes your skin crawl and compromise, you’ll constantly be seeking out other people, other situations.
LOL. Wrong. “Others” are simply inadequate. Dissatisfaction comes from expectation, of which there is none, as a foregone conclusion.
Interesting how quick you are to assert your judgements as fact, without any prior knowledge of the individuals who are posting in your thread.
let me put it this way, I’ve walked miles in your mocassin and know where your coming from.
LOL. Oh, that’s rich, LOL.
No you haven’t. You don’t have the slightest idea where I come from or what I’m about … what an inordinately arrogant and narcissitic assumption … LOL.
Now that’s rich, a nihilist calling me a narcissist.
LOL.
You all too well prove my point.
I am nowhere near a nihilist, even in the loosest defined sense.
but…
how can you know?